Rikki-tikki was bounding all round Nagaina, keeping just out of reach of her
stroke, his little eyes like hot coals. Nagaina gathered herself together and flung
out at him. Rikki-tikki jumped up and backward. Again and again and again she
struck, and each time her head came with a whack on the matting of the veranda
and she gathered herself together like a watch spring. Then Rikki-tikki danced in
a circle to get behind her, and Nagaina spun round to keep her head to his head,
so that the rustle of her tail on the matting sounded like dry leaves blown along
by the wind.
He had forgotten the egg. It still lay on the veranda, and Nagaina came nearer
and nearer to it, till at last, while Rikki-tikki was drawing breath, she caught it in
her mouth, turned to the veranda steps, and flew like an arrow down the path,
with Rikki-tikki behind her. When the cobra runs for her life, she goes like a
whip-lash flicked across a horse’s neck.